Beyond-the-classroom approach vital to eradicate poverty

With 1,000 days to go to meet global education goals, innovative partnerships and coordinated actions that go beyond the education sector are urgently needed to achieve a breakthrough for the 61 million children worldwide who are not in school. This was the theme of a high-level forum held in Washington D.C. today, hosted by World Bank President Jim Kim, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown. The discussions centred on overcoming basic education challenges in eight countries which account for almost half of the world’s 61 million out-of-school children – Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Nigeria, Yemen, and South Sudan.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Helen Clark said it was crucial for development partners and governments to make sustained efforts to accelerate progress in closing gaps in both access and quality of education.

“Education is key to developing the human capital of the next generation, and for eradicating poverty, but many factors need to come together for successful learning outcomes,” Helen Clark said today. “An holistic approach which covers factors such as early childhood nutrition, health care and access to quality schooling is needed so we can build on the progress made in increasing enrolment rates and achieving gender parity in primary education, given the significant challenges that remain.”

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International Day of Cooperatives 2015

UNSDN Quote

"Co-operatives are enterprises based on the principle of solidarity and social relations that act as the lever that raises and develops the weakest part of local communities and civil society, and provide new welfare solutions that support, facilitate and even encourage family life, because money if it is well managed, can be used to promote the common good."Pope Francis in a speech in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, 14 July 2015.